The significance of the Kennedy assassination to future generations may be more involved with the nature of American society in 1963 than with the nature of a whodunit
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The elder Trafficante's illness continued and during a trip back to Tampa in May, 1954, Santo was arrested with his younger brother Henry in an attempt to bribe a St. Petersburg policeman, Harry Dietrich. Santo was in the back seat of his brother's car, behind the Penguin Lounge in Tampa, while his brother was offering Dietrich whiskey and suits in exchange for his cooperation in protecting their bolita operations in the black area. Bolita was and is a form of numbers racket based on the results of the weekly Cuban national lottery. Although Santo had been given responsibility for Central Florida gambling operations by his father, he was more concerned with the other operation delegated to him by his father, the Sans Souci casino in Havana. Santo was more a passive observer to his brother's attempt at bribery as he sat in the back and his brother drove. On May 15, 1954 a police sweep in the black area netted 38 arrests for the illegal bolita operation, the two Trafficante brothers were arrested and charged with attempted bribery. Although they were soon convicted and given five year sentences, the convictions were quickly overturned on appeal. There would be another attempt on Santo's life that year and on August 11, 1954 the elder Santos Trafficante, Sr. died a natural death, leaving Santo in charge of the family business. The gang he was left in charge of consisted of he and his five brothers, as well as Frank Deicidue, Primo Lazzara, Jimmy Riggio, Frank Ferrara, Tony Friscia, and Dominick " Nick " Furci, the underboss. That same year, long-time Tampa gangster Charles W. Hall decided to retire from the Florida rackets; his retirement was short-lived as on April 18, 1955 Wall was found dead at his home, beaten and throat slashed. In 1960, a document came into the possession of Jack De La Lana, Tampa police intelligence officer, detailing the rivalry between Wall and the Trafficante's and implicating Santo in Wall's murder. With his troubles from the bribery conviction and after the death of Wall, Santo resumed running his operations from his base in Cuba; he would stay there from then until his later expulsion after Castro's revolution. The new Don of the Trafficante family attended and was honored at the wedding of Carmine Profaci and Anthony Tocco, on June 4, 1955, at New York's Hotel Commodore. Santo's father had become close friends with Joseph Profaci through the elder Trafficante's association with New York gang members Anthony Carfano and Joe Adonis who had relocated to Florida. Now at this event, Santo, jr. cemented his own ties with Profaci, an underboss in the Brooklyn gang of Albert Anastasia. Their relationship would result in one of the most infamous gangland executions, the 1957 slaying of Albert Anastasia in the barbershop of the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York. Although the mob had a supposed ban on narcotics smuggling, the breaches were becoming more significant than the observation. Of course, the Tampa mob had never concerned itself with the ban, and the Luciano connection from Europe via Cuba was going strong. However, in 1952 a joint U.S. and Italian operation broke the Luciano network, closing down the Italian heroin factories that had been used since the end of the war. This only had the effect of forcing the Mafia back to a more complete dependence on the Corsican heroin network for supply. Although Cuba was still a viable route, the mob decided to add a " Northern route " as well. In 1954, Corsican mobsters Giuseppe and Vincent Cotroni established this additional leg of the " French Connection " in Montreal. This route used Marseilles factories for supply with the Cotroni's shipping to Carmine Galante in New York via Buffalo. This involved the Buffalo family of Stefano Magadino and the New York families of Bonanno and Genovese. In 1959, Giuseppe Cotroni was indicted with Norman Rothman and others and was described as the biggest narcotics smuggler in North America. This Montreal network also utilized Cuba as a transshipment point, Cotroni had men in Havana and worked under the protection of Lansky and Trafficante. In 1956, this narcotics operation extended from Marseilles through Cuba, and supplies moved through Cuba and Montreal to New York, the Midwest, and the Southeast, as well as through Texas and Mexico. Although official mob historians would have us believe the mob p.r. promulagated by writers like Mario Puzo that the older families, especially in New York, refused to allow their members to deal in narcotics, the reality was that all the gangs did. From Buffalo through Chicago and Detroit, the southern rim, and back to New York, New Jersey, and the Montreal docks. Also the mob base that had been established in Cuba served as more than just a gambling enterprise; Havana was also a major transshipment point for the importation and distribution of heroin destined for the Southern rim of the U.S. The Trafficante organization dominated this route that ran from Havana through Miami, New Orleans, Texas, and Mexico. In 1956, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics officers were working on a case of a man who had been involved in this network and disappeared while in Mexico. His wife, Mrs. James Breen, was working as a prostitute in Dallas; she claimed that her husband was involved in this drug smuggling network and that his contact in Dallas was Jack Ruby. She claimed that Ruby had also given her and her husband permission to operate a prostitution operation out of their Dallas hotel room. There is evidence to suggest that Ruby played a part in this operation as he did in various other smuggling ventures that passed through Dallas. In 1956, Mr. and Mrs. James Breen came to Dallas from L.A. ostensibly to set up a prostitution racket. They were also working as informers for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics that was investigating a drug ring in the area. The Breen's sought out Ruby for protection in setting up Mrs. Breen in a local hotel and James was sent to Mexico on Ruby's behalf from whence he never returned. The worried wife contacted the Feds to find her husband, they had no success in locating Mr. Breen. This record in the Bureau of Narcotics files came to light in connection with the investigation of Ruby after the Oswald shooting. Though a minor incident, it is significant to note Ruby's involvement in the narcotics trade as it ties in with similar activities that relate directly to Oswald at the time of Kennedy's murder. By 1957, this mob drug business, which according to Mafia legend did not exist, was so lucrative that it prompted Albert Anastasia to attempt to muscle in on Lansky and Luciano's Cuban operations. The result of this conflict would lead to Anastasia's murder and the infamous gang meeting at Apalachin in 1957 and in a sense contributed to the ascension of Jack Kennedy to the White House and ultimately his death. In 1957, Joe Adonis retired as boss of the Brooklyn family which controlled the Brooklyn waterfront and moved to Italy; he had been a close friend of the elder Trafficante and an ally of Meyer Lansky in the development of Florida's mob operations. His replacement, Albert Anastasia, was neither. Anastasia, like Frank Costello, the titular head of the family, and their rival, Vito Genovese, was a non-Sicilian Italian. Albert had made his bones in the heyday of Murder Inc., becoming known variously as the " Mad Hatter " or the "Lord High Executioner" of organized crime. Anastasia, the new boss of the Adonis family, was more aggressive than his predecessor and more hungry for a share of the mob's income. His well known decision to open his family's membership rolls and begin selling memberships for $ 40,000 each did not endear him to the other bosses, but the act that sealed his fate was his attempt to muscle in on Lansky's operation in Havana. At that time the Cuban drug smuggling operation was well established and rivaled the Havana casinos for income production. Anastasia wanted a piece of both; Lansky told him that he was on the "waiting list" and sent Santo Trafficante, his Havana representative, to New York to talk with Albert. The hot tempered Anastasia responded in typical fashion; he sent four gunmen to Havana with orders to kill Lansky's man, Santo Trafficante, Jr. The Anastasia gang underestimated the alliance that Trafficante and Lansky had with the Cubans; the attempted assassination was prevented by Batista's police and the tables were set to be turned. Since the end of WWII, Vito Genovese, who was responsible for the New York end of the Luciano gang's affairs, was constantly maneuvering to take control from the ageing Don of organized crime, Frank Costello. Anastasia's actions supplied Genovese with the excuse he had wanted to gain support for a full-scale move on Costello's declining operation. The underbosses of the Adonis family, Carlo Gambino and Joseph Profaci, enjoyed good relations with the Luciano gang; they were also worried that Anastasia's hot headed leadership would put even more pressure on their family's declining share of mob income. They were ripe for the machinations presented to them by Vito Genovese. In the Spring of 1957 a meeting took place in Palermo, Sicily to discuss the drug business and more importantly to determine how to deal with Anastasia. In attendance were Lucky Luciano and Joe Bonano and his underboss, Carmine Galante. Galante was responsible for the New York end of the Montreal connection; Bonano's support for any disruption to the New York balance of power was essential. Shortly afterwards the counterattack began with the murder of Frank ( Don Cheech ) Scalise, an ageing underboss in the Costello organization. Perhaps in deference to his honored position, Frank Costello was eased out more gently. In May, a gunman cornered him entering his New York apartment lobby and only managed to graze the ageing Don's head, an act that induced Costello to make clear his intention to retire from active mob operations--- Anastasia was now isolated. At this point, Genovese was successful in gaining the support of Anastasia's lieutenants, Carlo Gambino and Joseph Profaci. Profaci's family was assigned the contract, Profaci had been working closely with Genovese and had been a good friend of Santo's father. Profaci gave the assignment to the Gallo brothers from Red Hook, Brooklyn. The Gallo's were soldiers in the Profaci mob, having joined recently along with Carmine Persico and his brother. Larry, the oldest of the three Gallo brothers, was the steadiest, Joey, the middle brother, was known as Crazy Joe and would go on to a short but illustrious career in New York mob circles, being publicly assassinated in a Little Italy restaurant a few years later by members of the Colombo gang. The third brother, Albert, was the youngest and was known by the nickname, " Kid Blast." For the ambitious Gallos, this contract was their chance to become " made members" of the gang and they handled it diligently. Probably with the intent of disarming Anastasia, Lansky sent Santo Trafficante to New York to meet with Albert at his New York hotel room in the Warwick. Santo checked in on the evening of October 24, 1957, registering under the name B. Hill. The meeting which took place that night ended in failure to reach any agreement and the next morning Santo checked out to return to Havana. The rest of that morning, October 25, 1957 is mob legend; Albert went, as was his custom, to the nearby Park Sheraton Hotel for his morning shave and at 10:15 while rapped in hot towels awaiting his barber, the Mad Hatter was dispatched by the Gallo's who had entered quietly but then proceeded to make a bloody mess of the barbershop as they ripped Anastasia's body apart with automatic weapons before making a successful departure. Larry and Joey were rewarded at the end of the year by becoming "made members" of the Profaci family. The concluding event in these affairs was the widely publicized meeting of organized crime in Appalachin, New York at the estate of Joseph Barbara, a member of the Buffalo family of Stephano Maggadino, where on November 14, 1957 a number of organized crime members from all parts of the country were arrested for consorting with each other. The meeting had been arranged by Maggadino at the urging of Genovese, its intent was to gain sanction from the Commission for the Anastasia hit and to provide an orderly means to divide Anastasia's territory among Genovese, Gambino, and Profaci. The meeting was abruptly disturbed by a curious local policeman who was intrigued by the great number of limousines parked at Barbara's house, which he promptly had surrounded. Some of the distinguished guests such as Chicago's Sam Giancana made their escape into the woods, others were taken in for questioning, including Joe Bonano, Vito Genovese, Joe Profaci, Carlo Gambino, and Santo Trafficante, up from Havana representing Lansky. The significance of this event to future history cannot be overlooked. The mass arrests of the mobsters not only attracted enormous public attention, it provided grist for the political mills which used the notorious crime members as a means of gaining political attention and public admiration. Of course, the Kennedy brothers were the leading exponents of this political ladder, they would play the dangerous game of riding the mob's back to power and ultimately to their own destruction. Although Bobby and Jack had been involved in investigations of the mob since the early Fifties, it is fair to say that everything which occurred afterwards stemmed from that Appalachian meeting. By 1954 the American and Italian pressure had broken the Luciano network in Italy and the Luciano organization then had to rely more on their partnership with the Corsicans to handle their narcotics' supply needs. For the next leg onward from their suppliers in the Near East, Luciano worked with the Cotroni brothers, Giusseppe and Vincent, who operated via Montreal to the States. The Cotronis brought their shipments across the Atlantic and inland through the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Great Lakes cities of Buffalo and Detroit, where Hoffa's Teamsters helped in the distribution chain. The main operator in this Luciano smuggling network was Carmine Galante, Joe Bonanno's underboss. " Lilo " Galante, born in East Harlem in the first decade of the century, had become a Bonanno underboss after being a gunman for Vito Genovese. It was believed that Galante had killed Carlo Tresca, Italian journalist and nationalist who opposed Mussolini, in New York in 1942, as a favor from the mob to Il Duce. Galante had served a long sentence in prison for hijacking; he was away from 1930-39. Now Galante coordinated the northern smuggling ring, taking charge of the heroin from the Cotroni's in Montreal and shipping it onward through the Stefano Magadino family in Buffalo. Magadino, now a member of the national commission of the syndicate, had been a Bonanno bodyguard as was Galante in earlier days. From Buffalo, Galante moved the narcotics onward to New York to other Genovese and Lucchese family members and also to Detroit, sometimes with Teamster protection along the route. At this time, the mob's activities were expanding rapidly in the areas of narcotics, gambling, and prostitution and Meyer Lansky, who had built a syndicate base in Miami, had been expanding the Cuban operation he had set up. In 1956, the Cotroni's put three of their gang in Havana to work with Lansky's men to set-up a southern distribution leg the same as Galante's in the north. Meyer Lansky and his protege, Santo Trafficante, provided the protection in Cuba and throughout the south that Galante provided in the north. Their third partner, Carlos Marcello, shared in this drug business, handling the more distant outreaches of New Orleans and Texas. Genovese and Gerardo Catena, of the Luchesse family, became supreme in the New York narcotics business and the Cotroni network in Montral and Cuba could work effectively with Lucky's men in Florida and Cuba. The plans for these events had developed around Luciano's plans to reorganize the mafia in Sicily after the American and Italian authorities had broken Lucky's network in Italy earlier in the decade; they were finalized in the joint U.S. and Sicilian meetings which took place in Palermo in 1957 and which had preceded and laid the groundwork for Anastasia's end. From mid-October to early November, 1957 the Hotel des Palmes and the Spano Seafood Restaurant in Palermo, Sicily, were the scenes of a mafia summit meeting arranged by Lucky Luciano and prepared by Sicilian proteges of Lucky: Tomasso Buscetta and Vito Vitale. Of the more than thirty attendees, the most prominent were Joseph Bonanno and his underboss, Carmine Galante, Lucky Luciano, representatives from the Luchesse, Genovese, and Gambino families, as well as Buscetta and Frank Coppola, both of whom had ties to the New York Gambino family. At the initial meetings, mainly at Spanos Restaurant, Lucky had broached the plans he had been making for the creation of a Sicilian Commission, based on the national syndicate that had been developed in the States. This was part of a grander design to join the mafiosi in Sicily with their cousins in the States into an effective narcotics' smuggling operation with the Sicilians playing the role of the Corsicans, providing for the initial wholesale distribution of the drug supply. A conclusive meeting took place in a suite at the Hotel des Palmes on November 2, 1957. The meeting was camaflouged by the trappings of the Sicilian celebration of All Souls Day, in Sicily: " The Day of the Dead." A reorganized heroin distribution network was agreed upon by the Five Families and the northern and southern gangs of the Luciano mob--- Anastasia would be cut out and eliminated, Gambino would take his place and Tomasso Buscetta, a Gambino relative, would look after business in Sicily. Michele Sindona, then a rising financial player in the Italian-Sicilian netherworld of mafiosi and Christian-Democrat politicians, later to be the cause of the downfall of the Franklin National Bank in New York, was offered and accepted as the man who would be responsible for the reinvestment of the profits that would be generated from this reorganized global narcotics business. Sindona and his patrons revealed plans that would permit the partners to infiltrate legitimate businesses world-wide with the profits from their enterprise. Thus, the Sicilian Commission was born, and plans for Albert Anastasia's demise had been set in motion. Genovese met with Thomas Luchesse and Gambino to get approval for the hit and Genovese arranged for his friend Joe Profaci to handle the arrangements. With Anastasia out of the way, the New York families, Buffalo and Montreal, and Cuba and Florida gang members were ready to be one big happy dope smuggling family in league with their Sicilian cousins and Corsicans when and where necessary. Shortly after the headline making death of Albert Anastasia, commission member Stefano Magadino of Buffalo arranged for the infamous Apalachin meeting in upstate New York. The agenda for the meeting was a final summit on the outcomes of the Palermo meetings and Anastasia's hit, the drawing of the territorial lines, the uses of the profits, and the plans to infiltrate legitimate business.
Chapter VI Investigating the mob and particularly labor racketeering had become a staple item of American politics in the Fifties, starting with the Kefauver Committee in the early years of the decade and continuing through to the ascension of the Kennedy's to the power of the White House and the Justice Department. Robert Kennedy played a pivotal role in all these investigations and perhaps his favorite target was the Teamsters union and its leader, Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa and the Teamsters were known to have extensive mob connections as far back as the Thirties, particularly with the Detroit and Chicago syndicates; the Chicago syndicate was known as the " Laundry Syndicate " because of its extensive involvement in labor racketeering, starting in the laundry business. Now Hoffa's power had grown immense and Teamsters' funds were being used to finance construction and real estate ventures throughout the country. It was natural that Hoffa and his Teamsters would become involved in the development of the Southern rim, starting at that time in Florida and nearby Cuba, later extending to Arizona. In the late Fifties, Meyer Lansky brought Hoffa's men into the Miami area, as well as involving them in his Cuban ventures. There were good opportunities for the Teamsters in the real estate developments which the mob was involved in Florida and also in the labor unions which were a natural outgrowth of the hotel/casino boom in Havana. This relationship would grow and over time the support of Lansky's men, Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello, would provide Hoffa with his strongest powerbase. That backing would be tested in the conflict with the Kennedys and would continue throughout the rest of Hoffa's turbulent career. It began in 1957 when Hoffa sent one of his most important subordinates, Rolland McMaster, to the Miami area. By 1958 McMaster was joined in Miami by Harold Gross, another Hoffa organizer; together with mob backing they set up Local 320. An office in the union hall was even set aside for the use of Santo Trafficante and his associate, Dave Yaras. Yaras was Chicago's man in Florida and Cuba at that time; he was a longtime associate of Sam Giancana and like Roselli had been involved with Trafficante in overseeing Chicago's interest in the Sans Souci and other Havana hotels. Yaras and his older brother Sam had grown up in the tough Jewish section of Chicago's West Side; the same section that Jack Ruby grew up in. In fact, the Yaras's knew the Rubensteins from school and the neighborhood and Dave and Sam and Jack had all been members of what was known then as the Dave Miller Gang. Directory: 2014 2014 -> For want of a nail 2014 -> The Global Warming that Wasn’t 2014 -> Assembly, No. 3901 state of new jersey 216th legislature 2014 -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 2014 -> Ihbb asian Championships 2014 middle school bowl Round 4 First Quarter 2014 -> Unit: Automotive and Auto Body 2014 -> Ihbb european Championships 2014 Bowl Round 4 First Quarter 2014 -> International History Bee and Bowl 2013-14 Asian Division Question Set Bowl Round Six 2014 -> United states patent and trademark office 2014 -> Walnut creek, ca branch executive committee meeting minutes Download 0.71 Mb. Share with your friends:
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